


unlike any silence you have ever not heard

by laughingacademy



Series: Night Vale Fanmixes [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fanmix, Gen, Music, My First Fanmix, Other, liner notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 07:35:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingacademy/pseuds/laughingacademy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A soundtrack for a summer's evening in the friendly town of Night Vale, complete with mysterious lights in the sky, otherworldly visitants, the dead, freefloating melancholia, your recommended daily allowance of paranoia, and a reminder that whoever, whatever, or wherever you are, we're all in this together.</p><p>(Personal headcanon: in summer a goodly percentage of Night Vale residents turn nocturnal, sleeping during the day and going about their business when it's dark and not too hot to breathe.)</p><p>ETA: Now with liner notes!</p>
            </blockquote>





	unlike any silence you have ever not heard

**Author's Note:**

> <http://8tracks.com/laughingacademy/unlike-any-silence-you-have-ever-not-heard/>

**The tracklist:**  


  1. "Lonely Acres in the West," Matt Munisteri and Brock Mumford _("Nevermore will I care to roam/When I die you will find my tomb a/Lonely acres home sweet home")_
  2. "I Hear a New World," Joe Meek _("How can I tell her/What’s in store for me?")_
  3. "The Devil’s Airship," Piñataland _("We’ll buzz this town/See what makes them tick")_
  4. "Walking on the Moon," Lucia Pamela _("Every time I take a trip I’m sure to meet my friends/From the sky, they fly high. This is hello from them.")_
  5. "Dead Get Down," Life in a Blender _("This is where the dead/Believe the sun’s a yo-yo/Made of God’s cheese/Now everybody pogo!")_
  6. "The Dada Polka," The Magnetic Fields _("Gyrate like a gyroscope, collide like a kaleidoscope, change/Do something, anything, do something strange")_
  7. "Chaining Up the Moonlight," The Moonlighters _("Underneath the oversight my days have bled/Now I can’t remember what the baby said")_
  8. "What’s He Building?," Tom Waits _("We have a right to know")_
  9. "Fruitless Labors," Brian Dewan _("Why was I surprised by my unlucky star’s rebound?/I once was found but now I’m lost and wound up in a lost-and-found")_
  10. "The Moon Fugue," The Lonesome Organist _(And now, the weather)_
  11. "The World Is a Disco Ball," Future Bible Heroes _("And we’re little mirrors one and all")_



**The liner notes:**

In retrospect, I'm slightly unnerved by how quickly I was able to put this set together after I was inspired by [a Daily Dot article about fanmixes](http://www.dailydot.com/fandom/fandom-mixtape-culture-tumblr-spotify-8tracks/). I already had all of this music (in fact, I've seen eight of the eleven acts represented in this mix live; make of that what you will), so it was mostly a matter of ordering the songs in a way that worked thematically.

We open with "Lonely Acres in the West" by Matt Munisteri ([mattmunisteri.com](http://www.mattmunisteri.com)), a Brooklyn-based musician with a sweet voice and serious guitar chops, who, as he puts it, "grew up devoted to a wide range of out-of-date, out-of-place music" (note that his band is named after Brock Mumford, an African-American guitarist from New Orleans who was part of the "Hot Jazz" scene of early-twentieth-century Paris). This song represents a first impression of Night Vale, a friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful...

But on a closer look, things seem slightly ... off. Enter Joe Meek, a pioneering British producer, engineer, and songwriter best known for the 1962 hit "Telstar." Meek was dogged by financial woes, depression, and paranoia (it didn't help that he was gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal in the UK), and in 1967, on the eighth anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly (whose spirit, Meek claimed, spoke to him in dreams), Meek murdered his landlady with a shotgun and then committed suicide. "I Hear a New World" is the title track of a concept album that was shelved until 1991, though it and a few other cuts were released as an EP in 1960.

Now look up. See those mysterious lights? Perhaps it's "The Devil's Airship." This number by "dark oompah cabaret orchestrette" Pinataland ([pinataland.com](http//www.pinataland.com)) was inspired by late-nineteenth-century accounts of what would nowadays be called UFO sightings. Is there a connection between cattle mutilations attributed to aliens, and the soft meat crowns traditionally worn by Night Vale's town elders? We probably shouldn't ask.

If we are dealing with E.T.s, hopefully they're the benign variety featured in the late Lucia Pamela's "Walking on the Moon." The Miss St. Louis of 1926 had a long career as a musician and bandleader before she went to the Moon in a homemade rocket in 1969 (beating Neil Armstrong) to record her only album, _Into Outer Space with Lucia Pamela_. I wonder if she and Old Woman Josie, out by the car lot, ever crossed paths?

The name of our next band, the NYC-based Life in a Blender ([lifeinablender.net](http://www.lifeinablender.net/)), seems not inappropriate for Night Vale. In the meantime, are you ready for the Thanksgiving Day Dead Citizens Impersonation Contest? All are welcome at the employee lounge under the mall as the "Dead Get Down."

Perhaps they'll do "The Dada Polka," as promulgated by The Magnetic Fields, one of the ensembles fronted by the droll, bi-coastal baritone songwriter Stephin Merritt ([the House of Tomorrow](http://www.houseoftomorrow.com)). Night Vale strikes me as a town susceptible to dance crazes, don't you agree?

Of course, sooner or later you have to go to bed and lie there in the dark, wide-eyed or feigning sleep as best suits you. Possibly the dulcet if somewhat eerie strains of "Chaining Up the Moonlight," by Bliss Blood and her fellow devotees of ukulele and Hawaiian steel guitar, the Moonlighters ([blissblood.com/music.html](http://www.blissblood.com/music.html)), will keep the existential horror of the void at bay.

Not sleepy? Maybe a stroll is in order. Stretch your legs, fill your lungs with cool night air, exchange nods with the Sheriff's Secret Police as you pass that one house -- you know the one, with the unexplained noises and the odd lights coming through the crack under the door. It'd be only natural to pause for a moment and ask, along with musician and actor Tom Waits ([tomwaits.com](http://www.tomwaits.com)), "What's He Building?"

I wonder if "he" is in touch with Brian Dewan? This artist and musician kept busy making filmstrips, performing new compositions and odd old folk songs (some available at [briandewan.eschatone.com](http://briandewan.eschatone.com/)), and building one-of-a-kind electronic music instruments ([dewanatron.com](http://www.dewanatron.com/)) in his Williamsburg apartment, until an influx of hipsters and the attendant rise in rents sent him in search of greener pastures. Listen to "Fruitless Labors," and take comfort from his sonorous voice and measured optimism.

The penultimate track is "The Moon Fugue" by Jeremy Jacobsen, AKA the Lonesome Organist ([lonesomeorganist.com](http://lonesomeorganist.com/)), a one-man band with a huge sound. Given how atmospheric this instrumental is, it made sense to award it the "weather" slot.

Finally, we close with "The World Is a Disco Ball," by the Future Bible Heroes (another wing of Stephin Merritt's [House of Tomorrow](http://www.houseoftomorrow.com), though this time the vocals are by Claudia Gonson), a song in keeping with Cecil's celebrations of Night Vale's indomitable communal spirit.


End file.
